


bittersweet

by antenism



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: First Crush, M/M, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23556220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antenism/pseuds/antenism
Summary: Aira Shiratori is one of the most recognized singer/songwriters of this generation, captivating thousands with his beautiful voice, detailed lyrics, and charming personality. And Hiiro is in love with him.
Relationships: Amagi Hiiro/Shiratori Aira
Comments: 3
Kudos: 71





	bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> you know who you are.  
> fun fact: i can't feel my fingers.

If Hiiro had known Rinne was trying to get his attention, he probably would have taken his headphones off and listened to what his brother had to tell him. Or maybe he would have made the music several clicks louder and tried to leave the room. The one thing he knew for certain was that he would not have turned his back on his and give Rinne the perfect opportunity to throw a cup at him.

In his defense, it was an empty plastic cup and he barely felt it hitting the back of his head, but that didn’t mean that the reaction wasn’t a little bit of overkill.

“O-Oi...” He was saying. “Is there anyone up there?”

“You know I thought when you turned twenty you’d stop acting like a five year old.” 

“Hey!” Rinne narrowed his eyes at him.

“What were you trying to say to me?” He asked him.

“Oh, right, just if you’re going to listen to your boyfriend you might as well plug it into the speakers so you don’t kill your eardrums...”

“I’m not killing my eardrums,” Hiiro argued.

“Yes you are,” Niki shouted from the other room. “Just listen to him.”

Hiiro had the childish urge to shout back that Niki wasn’t his dad... “Fine,” Hiiro relented, unplugging his headphones and tossing his phone to Rinne. “Just don’t make fun of me again. It’s not like you don’t listen to them too.”

“I make fun of you ‘cause this band is literally the only thing you listen to,” Rinne said flatly.

“I know what I like,” Hiiro shrugged before sitting next him on their couch.

He had a point, although he was far too stubborn to recognize that out loud. Hiiro’s taste in music didn’t really reach farther than Alkaloid—or, to be more specific their lead singer and songwriter Shiratori Aira.

Hiiro had been fifteen, coincidentally almost the same age as the artist himself, when he’d first heard one of Aira’s songs. It was before Hiiro had finished first job, the one that only a few months later would end up making him enough money to pay off all of his parents debts and ensure that him and Rinne would never have to worry about landing jobs. It was back when the only thing keeping him on this earth was the fear that Rinne couldn’t take another heartbreak. It was back when he felt pathetic, and alone, and hopeless.

Aira’s voice had made all of that hurt a little bit less. Alkaloid’s lyrics had spoken to him in a way that music never had before. They were poetic and far more intricate... The melodies of the songs filled Hiiro’s head with thoughts that weren’t deadly, and dark, and dangerous. In a way, Aira had saved him.

And Hiiro was in love with him.

Maybe it was better to say that Hiiro was in love with the idea of Aira, he wasn’t delusional enough to think that it was possible to be in love with someone you’ve never met—someone who didn’t even know that you existed. Hiiro was in love with the voice, and the poetic mind, and the talent that was Aira Shiratori.

At some point he’d get over it, he was positive of that. Maybe a few years later he was still in the same boat he’d been in back when he first fell for that voice, but eventually it would pass. Hiiro didn’t mind being in love with Aira for now.  
Through all of this, he still listened to Alkaloid’s music. They seemed to both grow in the public’s eyes . Part of him had thought he wouldn’t need the music now that he’d found his place and had the help he needed to chase away the bad thoughts, but he’d been wrong.

Hiiro started all of this listening to his voice, and somehow that music was the one thing that could soothe the tangles in his mind whenever he felt the pressure of success or fear that he was going to lose his touch.

“This reminds me,” Rinne cut through his thoughts. “I know what I’m getting you for your birthday.”

“My birthday was a month ago,” he reminded dryly. “You got me a pen.”

“It was a really cool pen,” Rinne huffed. “But I’m giving you your second present now.”

“Okay,” he raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“They’re doing a meet and greet next week,” Rinne gestured to the air which usually meant he was referring to whatever music was playing. “It’s a few city’s away, so I’m driving.”

“No thanks, nii-san.” 

“Oh, come on, I know you want to meet him.”

That was true. Hiiro did what to meet the person behind the voice that had practically saved his life. But that would make Aira Shiratori a real person and not just the perfect being Hiiro’s head had made him into. Real people weren’t perfect, real people were full of tiny flaws that could ruin the beauty they created, and real people didn’t care about Hiiro.

“And we haven’t done a road trip in a long time, it’ll be fun.”

“Plus you need to get out of the house more!” This time it was Niki who called at them from the other room.

“If you look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to go, I’ll tell HiMERU-chan to cancel the tickets,” Rinne informed him.

“You already bought tickets?” he asked.

“There’s only a limited amount of VIP ones and I’m not gonna stand in a three hour line,” Rinne exclaimed his defense. “So do you want to go or not?”

That was a hard question. Maybe seeing Aira—the real Aira—would be the kind of closure Hiiro needed to put this stupid crush behind him. Personally, he didn’t see the harm in being more in love with someone who had no idea he existed than someone he actually knew, but Rinne and his friends were starting to nag him about how he avoided genuine relationships.

And maybe that was a bit of a problem. Hiiro dn’t trust people. He didn’t know how to trust anyone aside from his tiny, broken family, but it was easier to use this pretend version of love to avoid confronting that.

“Okay,” he said out loud. “Let’s go.”

“Yes!” Rinne pumped his fist in the air. Hiiro made a big show of rolling his eyes at him.

It was only a week later, when he was throwing a spare change of clothes into a bag and making sure Rinne had filled the car with anything they could possible need, that what he’d agreed to really set in. It was as Hiiro was thinking about how he hadn’t been this nervous about anything for a long time, and how he had no idea what he was supposed to be feeling, that he realized this might not have been such a good idea.

So he handled these emotions the way he handled everything. He wrote.

It wasn’t supposed to be a confession, he was sure someone as famous as Aira got those everyday. It wasn’t supposed to be something that was ever actually read either. He was certain that this idol would receive a pile of fan mail at this event alone and knew that his letter would probably just sit in the middle of the stack before it was eventually tossed out.

He didn’t take offense to that. In fact, that was the best situation he could ask for. It would give him a chance to get these feelings out without having to talk to anyone.  
So Hiiro wrote a thank you letter to the voice that had saved him. He came clean about the foolish emotions he had towards said voice, but how he wasn’t stupid enough to think that something would ever come of it.

He put the letter in an envelope and tucked it into his jacket pocket. For now, he’d ignore how poetic it was that the piece of paper seemed to fall over his heart.

“Got everything?” HiMERU asked when he slid into the passenger seat his car.

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” Niki reminded him. “There’s not a lot of things to forget.”

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Rinne beamed at him as he pulled out of the driveway.

He thought about telling him about the letter, but decided against it. He’d probably want to know what Hiiro put inside of it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to say any of those words out loud. They were better where they were, sitting in his jacket pocket never to see the light of day again.

☆

Aira was ready to get this over with. It wasn’t that he didn’t like seeing his fans--he knew how pompous he’d sound if he said he didn’t--but it was these sort of events that always seemed to drain his energy from him, even though all he was expected to do was sign CDs and pose for selfies.

Still, it never really felt like any of this was about him. Here, fans wanted the chance to see the image he created, but the person sitting next to them with his camera-face on wasn’t the same one they’d see on stage or hear through their earbuds.  
That was the real Aira. Interviews and things like this was just a chance to show off the little, small-town boy act everyone seemed to love so much. He often found himself wondering why they did when this wasn’t anything like the person who wrote the songs they listened to.

The line was supposed to open in twenty minutes. They were already all sitting at the table, even though it wasn’t the rest of the band that everyone knew these people were here to see. That was another thing that bothered Aira. Sure, they marketed him as the heartthrob, and he was the face of the band and the writer behind it, but that didn’t mean that the rest of them didn’t work just as hard as he did.

“Are you okay?” A voice broke through Aira’s focus. Well, almost all of them.

“Sorry, Mayoi-san.”

“We talked about putting distractions away,” Tatsumi chided Aira. He wasn’t really that annoyed.

They were probably the only two persons Aira actually listened to. That was one of the reasons why Tatsumi was the band manager. The other reason was that after being taught how cruel the world was at such an early age, none of them had wanted adults with money and agenda to infiltrate their little circle. They could do this on their own, just their little family of kids who’d been denied exactly that.

Slowly, Aira watched the minutes tick by, not once letting anyone see how draining this really was. He wore a bright smile, grasping the hands of the excited people who came here to see him and asking their names. The faces seemed to blur by, but he continued to grin and chatter away with them. They came all this way to talk to him, he didn’t want to disappoint them even if the real him—the one whose songs they claimed to love—wasn’t the one laughing and talking to them.

The haze seemed to briefly stop when a boy around his age red hair and blue eyes approached the table. He didn’t seem half as thrilled to be there as everyone else, and at first Aira thought that he was just the dutiful boyfriend accompanying the pink haired boy by his side. 

“Kohaku, stop!”

Then he noticed that ‘Kohaku' was the one pushing him forward and not the other way around. He seemed more bubbly, but Aira couldn’t tell if it was the idea of being near famous people or just his personality. Still his attention was more on the boy than any of Alkaloid.

“Hi.”

Given the demeanor, Aira almost didn’t expect this guy to meet his eyes, but he did—and with a stare that seemed to see so deeply inside of Aira that he almost looked away. For a second he was thrown off his guard. That usually didn’t happen, especially from just a look.

“Hey,” Aira pressed the smile back on his face. Reaching forward to sign the CD Kohaku had placed on the table. “Who should I make this out to?”

“Hiiro,” the boy uttered. “Just Hiiro.”

“I think I’ll leave out the ‘just,’” Aira replied. He was slipping back into the charismatic pop-star routine. “Your name’s Hiiro-kun?”

“Yeah,” the boy nodded.

He didn’t exactly seem shy, so maybe he was just awkward. That was normal when meeting a celebrity. Yeah, the more Aira looked at him the more he could tell he was nervous. That was kind of cute. Usually the guys, especially the ones who weren’t teenagers, would go to further lengths of hide things like that.

He was kind of cute. Shiratori couldn’t tell if it was the way his choppy hair framed his face or those blue eyes was definitely attractive. So was the boy behind him who was currently bouncing from foot to foot and looking at Aira with an interested, but not overly impressed expression.

“Does your boyfriend want something signed?” Aira asked. Deciding he might as well make conversation with the first people that had stuck out to him all day.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” The boy—Hiiro made an odd face at that. Aira had a feeling he knew what that face meant, and since he was tired and wanted to have a little bit of fun, he doodled a little heart next to Hiiro’s name before sliding the CD back to him. It was only then that he noticed the envelope in Hiiro’s hands.

“Is that for me?” He asked out of curiosity. It was normal for him to get gifts during these events. He already had a growing pile next to him of cards, and notes, and little baked goods.

“Yeah,” Hiiro reached forward, as if to drop the envelope in that pile but Aira stopped his hand and took it from him instead.

“Thanks,” he smiled at him and then at the boy behind him. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet'cha.” Kohaku said before walking away and giving the next person in line their turn.  
Aira tucked the envelope in his pocket.

He only remembered it was there that night when he was back in the comfort and quiet of his hotel room and getting ready to read before bed. The day had been long and the encounter had completely slipped from his mind until that moment. Usually Aira had someone else go through fan mail. If it was particularly interesting or moving they’d show it to him, but he usually found reading praise from these people who claimed to adore him a bit overwhelming.

Still, this letter intrigued him, and he didn’t have much else to do until he fell asleep so he found himself opening it anyway.

Four lines and Aira nearly fell to the floor in shock. 

Slowly, and with his heart hammering in his chest, Aira read the beautifully written thank you note and admission of feelings written by...

That boy with red hair, blue eyes, and the completely awkward way of speaking was Hiiro.

And he was in love with Aira.

And Aira had no idea how to find him.


End file.
